NO MORE SAMSONS

LEGEND has it that Samson’s phenomenal strength came from the long tresses on his head – the longer the hair, the greater his strength.

It took deception for the secret of his powers to be surreptitiously discovered, cunningly extracted by Delilah. Lulled into deep sleep as all his cares melted away in the gentle swell of the vixen’s heaving busom, (okay, the fatigued warrior was loudly snoring away on her lap, overcome with exhaustion after a very vigorous day out huntin’).

Little did he know that the heretofore doting Delilah was in the employ of the Philistines. Together they got Samson in the compromising position which duly allowed Delilah to snip away at his locks. Snip after snip, his extraordinary strength ebbed inexorably with each lost strand.

Shorn of hair, Samson was easily subdued, captured and incarcerated. (For the rest of the story, go get a DVD – if such devices still exists - of Samson and Delilah for a bit of an education in Ancient History).

Samson is also the name of an Indonesian popular band whose ballads of life and love had a big resonance with the Y generation. Here at Astro AWANI, Samson was the nickname given to Khairul Anuar Che Ramli, our colleague who shares a fleeting resemblance to the lead member of the eponymously-named band.

In the time he was with Astro AWANI, Khairul aka Samson worked diligently at his job, splicing together video bites, matching them to audio, laying over music to produce complete segments aired on news shows and other programmes transmitted by Astro AWANI.

In the spirit of Go Beyond where every employee puts in extra effort over and above their job description, Samson often assisted in doing VOs (voice-overs). This was a task he assumed voluntarily, sitting as he does, closest to the Audio Hut and eager to jump in with a useful contribution.

Sadly, Samson is no more. He passed away on Sunday morning, struck down by the deleteriously deadly dengue fever.

His immediate colleagues thought he was merely struck down with plain fever when he took sick leave on Tuesday. Ever the trouper, he returned to work on Wednesday. He was too ill to work on Thursday so his wife took him to hospital. By Saturday, he was quickly going downhill and by Sunday morning, he breathed his last.

Innallillah hi wa inna hirro ji oon – From Allah We Come and to Allah We Return.

His demise at such a young age – at 33 he was just starting a family; embarking on the route to establish a career for himself. It brings to mind the Buddy Holly saga – that the good die young. This was of course epitomised by the Don McClean classic American Pie who lamented through music a life cut short with the full promise still lying some way ahead.

While we at Astro AWANI – his colleagues lament greatly this decimation of our ranks, nothing compares with the deep loss suffered by Samson’s surviving family members. He leaves behind an orphaned son barely one year-old and a wife widowed. We do not know enough about other immediate family members who might be dependent on the responsibility borne by his young shoulders.

Astro AWANI has therefore launched an initiative called Cukup Setakat Samson – Banteras korban denggi habis habisan (No More Samsons – Stop Dengue Deaths Once and For All).

If there is one thing we want to achieve from this campaign, it is to neutralise the danger from dengue!

That dengue has reached alarming proportions is a given. Where once there was a time when our government was loathed to announce casualty figures for fear of its effects on tourism, there appears to be no such inhibitions any more.

Sweeping the problem under the carpet and burying our heads in the sand is soooo....North Korean!

So now we have the Health Minister giving regular updates on dengue cases – and deaths, without any need to conceal. Acknowledging the scale of the problem is indeed the first step to any eventual redemption and hopefully, solution.

Astro AWANI has taken up the cudgels and have gone to great lengths to advocate better public awareness of the problem and the promotion of preventive measures. Our hope is that while the mosquitoes do not seem a controllable variable in this unequal equation, it is the human victims than can change the course of this seemingly complicated battle.

It might be a tall order but how else can we at Astro AWANI react in memory of a dear friend and close colleague?

Say what you will of Astro AWANI, if there is one thing that binds us together, it is the camaraderie that is the hallmark of this television station.

I consider myself an outsider – having only recently joined what is an upstart station that is up against a world of rivals who are established media giants. Others stations have bigger studios, carry more cash in their petty kitty or announce their presence by parking their 10-tonne OB trucks to dwarf puny AWANI’s. Why, I hear their fleet of cars alone and attendant pilots can put Hertz to shame, well amost!

What Astro AWANI has is buckets of ambition driven by creative capacity and powered by indefatigable energy. So when we lose one of our number, we feel it, deep to our very bones. We will never fully win any aerial battle against the winged marauders. What we intend to do therefore is fight the battle on our own terms.

That means disseminating knowledge, identify, understand and manage this mosquito menace. What we already know is that the mosquitoes are not the problem. It is us, humans who have it within our powers to adjust our behaviour so that mosquitoes and men co-exist.